Food 16: Potatoes 🥔

Some favourite recipes

Potato print from PattyFleckArt on Etsy

If I wrote a cookbook - which I won’t, but if - it would be based on opening the fridge, seeing one particular ingredient and thinking, ‘I need to use this up. What shall I make with it that I haven’t made a thousand times?’.

The imaginary book - there are books like it, but they’re either very dated or not nearly fat enough - would be called Supper. It would be manual-like and workaday, not the kind of cookbook you read on the sofa. You’d look up your main ingredient - tofu, minced beef, noodles, a fish, chicken thighs, a cabbage, whatever - and there would be 15 or 20 different things to do with it, all with different flavour profiles, all relatively quick and certainly easy: food for supper tonight.

And here’s the thing: the recipes would be from all sorts of different professional recipe writers. Like, the creme de la creme of chicken or tofu or carrot recipes. This is why my book is imaginary - you’d run into a nightmare with permissions (writers allowing someone else to use their copyrighted work).

But it’s occurred to me that I could make occasional mini-versions of it right here, using recipes that are freely available online. And so here are a few of my very favourites featuring THE POTATO. I’ve kept them reasonably summery, but since summer is nowhere to be seen here in the UK, there are a couple of warming exceptions too.

Potato sides:

Simon Hopkinson’s chips, which are the best chips (fries). If you want steak, his steak method (same link) is perfection too.

Ottolenghi’s aromatic olive oil mash (super herby, insanely good, people say ‘Oh my God, these potatoes’). ↓

Jane Lovett’s sticky lemon and oregano potatoes (perfect summer potatoes that go with everything).

Claire Thomson’s Whacked and Drunken Potatoes - coriander seeds, red wine, bay, olive oil, chef’s kiss - from her invaluable book New Kitchen Basics. I would like this book to be 6-volume work.

Debora Robertson’s classic-with-a-twist My Favourite Potato Salad from her Notes From A Small Kitchen Island - again, perfect for summer.

The Quality Chop House’s legendary confit potatoes. These are a project - a massive arse-breaking effort, tbh - but they are like food you might eat in heaven.

Spiced:

Aloo gobi (potato and cauliflower curry) from Chetna Makan. See also this potato and cheese toasted sandwich of dreams - just the thing for a late Sunday breakfast. I’ve also made it successfully with quite stiff leftover plain mash.

Or make Rukmini Iyer’s drier, excellent one-tray variant from India Express. ↓

Jeera aloo, or potatoes with cumin - so easy and deeply delicious.

1. For two people, get a couple of biggish potatoes and slice them very thinly - a mandolin would be perfect, but never mind if not. Put them in a colander and rinse them under a running tap, and then pat them dry.

2. I mean, you don’t have to slice them thinly - you could just cut them into chunks. It would take a bit longer, but so what, really? The sliced version is very quick, though.

3. Heat enough neutral (e.g. sunflower) oil to cover the bottom of a pan or frying pan into which it looks like your sliced potatoes will fit in more or less one layer - a bit of overlap is fine, but don’t cram them in. Medium heat.

4. When the oil is hot, add a whole dried red chilli or some chilli flakes and a teaspoon of cumin seeds (or more, but start with that).

5. When the cumin is sizzling - moments - add the potatoes in more or less one layer plus a good pinch of salt. Let everything get sizzling again, and then lower the heat to low.

6. Leave them until they’re cooked. Flip them over when one side looks cooked and don’t worry if they break - they’re supposed to.If you’re using chunks rather than slices, it will be more broken that not, but still taste delicious.

Lovely side dish, or speedy main with rice and yogurt and lime pickle, or for breakfast with a couple of fried eggs and chapatis/pita bread to scoop.

Keema with potatoes. Use beef if you don’t like lamb and do add frozen peas for the last bit. I do this on autopilot using an ancient and beloved Madhur Jaffrey recipe from the 1980s - updated version of it here (just add chopped potatoes, or halved baby potatoes, about 40 minutes in, and add a bit of water if it looks too dry. If you don’t have potatoes, or even if you do, add two or three cubes of frozen spinach. Or fresh, obviously).

Keema leftovers have endless uses. I like it spread inside a sheet of ready-made puff pastry, folded over and brushed with milk so the edges stick and the top gets a glaze, baked until puffed and golden and served in rectangular slices, like a sort of pie. Or make individual sealed parcels, like a pasty but not (this is my favourite picnic food). Or put it inside samosas. Or inside this twist on shepherd’s pie from Sarah Woods’s Desi Kitchen (great book).

‘Ancient and beloved’: not a figure of speech. My mother gave me this book when I left home. I must have made this keema literally hundreds of times.

Rajasthani Slow-Cooked Potatoes from Roopa Gulati, who writes such good recipes - this is from India - The World Vegetarian. She also has a new book coming out this winter, I will remind you closer to the time. These potatoes are cooked in yogurt and are amazing and easy to make. Recipe reproduced here by kind permission.

Roopa says in the headnote that you can use waxy or floury potatoes, and to use normal fat green chillies rather than skinny super-hot Thai ones. Big bunches of coriander from Asian grocers are the way to go here. She suggests serving with tarka dal, flatbreads and ‘cucumber wedges sharpened with a squeeze of lime and then dusted with a little ground cumin and salt’. This cucumber detail gives you an idea of the brilliance of her recipes.

SERVES 4

• 30g coriander, roughly chopped

• 350g full-fat (important) Greek yoghurt

• 1 tablespoon gram flour

• ¾ teaspoon ground roasted cumin seeds

• 50g ghee or 3-4 tablespoons sunflower oil

• 1 onion, thinly sliced

• 20g root ginger, peeled and cut into thin matchsticks

• 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

• 50g mild green chillies, deseeded and thickly sliced

• 600g Charlotte potatoes, scrubbed and halved

Heat the oven to 170°C/150°C fan/gas mark 3.

Put the coriander, yoghurt, gram flour and cumin in a food processor and blend until smooth.

Heat the ghee or oil in a sturdy medium flameproof casserole over a medium-low heat. Add the onion, ginger, garlic and green chilies and cook for 8-10 minutes, until the onion has softened.

Add the coriander and yoghurt mixture and 200ml of hot water to the pan and bring to a simmer, stirring all the time. Stir in the halved potatoes, then cover the casserole with foil and a tight-fitting lid and cook in the oven for 1½ hours, until the potatoes are tender and the masala has thickened.

Relatively plain, in a good way:

Salmadundy, or warm chicken salad with summer slaw. This is a cheat because potatoes are only one of many ingredients, but it is SO MAGNIFICENTLY GOOD that I am including it anyway - I didn’t think it was online, what joy finding it. If you’re having people to lunch and the summer has turned up, just make this and put it on your biggest and most handsome platter. Recipe by Jeremy Lee of Quo Vadis, from his multi-award winning book Cooking. That book is also ridiculously beautiful - look at the chapter heading for Potatoes. The drawings are by the great John Broadley.

This pic is wonky, sorry

If time is an issue, another very good and easy salad is this Smoked Mackerel, Potato and Watercress Salad from Margot Henderson’s You’re All Invited, which is out of print so I am reproducing it here. Which I think is okay. I’m never really sure. Also if you’re visiting London, go to Rochelle Canteen, where her son is now head chef, and if you’re in Somerset and near Batcombe, go to The Three Horseshoes (which also has rooms). Anyway: the recipe, which serves 4.

4 smoked mackerel fillets

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

250g new potatoes

2 bunches watercress

a handful of fresh curly parsley, chopped finely

2-3 tablespoons vinaigrette

1. Check the mackerel for bones, then break into large pieces. Put aside.

2. Cook the potatoes in salted water until tender. Drain and leave to cool for a bit, then cut in half.

3. Trim the watercress stalks, then wash and spin the leaves.

4. Put in a bowl and add the vinaigrette. Do this while the potatoes are still warm. Toss gently. Season with salt and pepper and serve with bread and butter.

The vinaigrette in question is made from 1 clove garlic, 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard, 1 teaspoon verjuice, 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar, 100 ml extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper. I don’t have verjuice so I just leave it out.

The masterpiece on cooking potatoes is In Praise of the Potato by Lindsey Bareham, which is also out of print. Why are brilliant cookbooks allowed to go out of print while indifferent ones appear every two minutes? Anyway - you can find it second hand, including on Abe Books. Happily I have my trusty copy to hand.

It’s hard to pick one recipe but I’m going for Jansson’s Temptation because I was reminded of it taking the photo of Jeremy Lee’s book, and also because I used to make this decades ago when I lived in Stoke Newington (which did not bear much relation to Stoke Newington as it is today). Five minutes away was a little restaurant called Anna’s Place, which was run by Anna Hergarty, who was Swedish, and she just cooked this absolutely delicious Swedish food in a very relaxed and homely setting. Anyway: this potato dish was my favourite. The below recipe is hers, given to Lindsey Bareham.

Serves 4

Ideally you’d use Swedish anchovies, which are milder in flavour - IKEA sells them - but regular anchovies are fine.

• 6 medium-sized waxy-variety potatoes

• 14 anchovy fillets

• 2 tbs butter

• 2 onions, finely sliced

• 3 fl oz (75 ml) each single cream and double cream

• 2-3 tbs homemade breadcrumbs (or panko, which I don’t think you could buy at the time the recipe was written)

Rinse and chop the anchovy fillets. Liberally butter a gratin dish. Peel and grate the potatoes and make layers of potato, onion and anchovy finishing with potatoes. Press the mixture down firmly, smooth the surface and pour the cream mixture over the top so that the potatoes can be glimpsed but aren't smothered. If you need more liquid use some of the liquor from the anchovy tin. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs on top, dot with butter and bake at 400°F/200°C/gas mark 6 for 1 hour. Serve with a glass of Schnapps and a cold beer.

I could go for days with potato recipes, but I have to stop somewhere. In other news, two new outstanding cookbooks for your attention:

↑ This, by Angela Clutton, is a fantastic read and hugely useful. It’s divided by seasons and tells you exactly what to do with a given ingredient - what flavours go with it, how to store it or preserve it, loads (and I mean loads) of ways to use it - and then gives you incredibly appetising recipes. I’ve learned so much from reading it and am standing hovering over my broad beans so that I can make her creamed spinach and broad bean tart, ditto the courgettes in anticipation of courgette and cucumber soup with courgette flowers.

Last week I made her rather more wintry roasted cauliflower with pork, ginger and shallots - all in one tin, easy peasy - and it was a TRIUMPH. The whole book is like having your friend who is a much better cook and just knows tons of stuff chatting to you in the kitchen. It is stuffed to the gills with knowledge and info.

Marc Diacono’s latest (he is writing his next book in real time on his Substack) is as wonderful as you would expect, full of simple but vividly delicious vegetarian recipes - of which I have made creme fraiche and tomato tart, pissaladiere but with red miso (so good I made it twice) and a version of the super-handy pilaf blueprint. Like Angela Clutton’s, it’s an extremely user-friendly book. Out on Thursday, and you can attend its virtual launch - he’ll be chatting to Itamar Srulovich of Honey & Co.

Last thing: I am very taken with this Illy milk frother. I already have a really good milk frother, but it’s German and Brexit has made it hard to get hold of. If you’re in the market, the Illy one is much cheaper and has rave reviews. Also, pretty.

These fortnightly food posts are free to read, as are the alternating picture posts. For everything else, you’ll need a paid subscription. Either way, thanks very much for reading, please ❤️ this post if you enjoyed it, and have a lovely Sunday.

PS My beloved and heroic former husband has aggressive prostate cancer and is today taking part in a hiking half-marathon to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Research. His podcast co-presenter and friend Sarah Edmundson has non-curable breast cancer that has now spread to her bones. They are walking (slowly) together and it would mean the world to me if you would consider chucking them a couple of quid. Of course never mind if you don’t or can’t! But thank you SO MUCH if you can and do. Sorry to rattle a tin in your face first thing Sunday morning, but I thought I might as well - nothing ventured, etc.